


These chains don't bite

by cryogenia



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: BDSM, Consensual Non-Consent, Dissociation, Flashbacks, Gone Awry, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Rope Bondage, Trauma, and as much as Than wants to be able to reclaim things, basically sisyphus was very much not nice, regarding the terms Than asks Zag to use, safe wording, sometimes that's hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryogenia/pseuds/cryogenia
Summary: In an attempt to reclaim both his sexuality and his chains in the wake of the Sisyphus incident, Thanatos and Zagreus have been experimenting with bondage. They've got a communication plan and they've done wonderful, affirming scenes before. This time, they think they're finally ready.These chains don't bite.Until they do.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 156
Collections: Hades Kink Meme





	These chains don't bite

**Author's Note:**

> For the Hades kink meme. For more detailed warnings (which may include spoilers), please see the notes at the end of the fic.

The chains are waiting at the foot of the bed, coiled together like happy copper snakes. Thanatos sits at the edge as instructed, next to their pillow like a good, proper owner. These chains don’t bite, he’s had them before. Worn them, when the world was different. They are supposed to be a part of him. Thanatos takes one end in his hand, turning the short length over and over, slowly getting himself reacquainted.

The metal is old -- copper, not iron -- but it’s polished to a perfect glassy luster. Each link is nearly the length of a mortal’s fist. It’s not the length of the chain that matters but what’s in them. All of death’s power, to bind and keep and claim. 

Zagreus watches him with a reverence that borders on embarrassing.

“Are you sure?” Zag asks again. He is sure, he is ready. He can hold them now, look, here they are in his hands. He’s worked for this.

Thanatos lifts the end of the chain up, draping it across both hands. The links snap immediately, perfectly straight, responding to the need to behave and be orderly. No mortal creature could make this brilliant thing. It’s his own weapon. He can claim it.

“Yes,” Thanatos tells his lover. “I’m ready.”

Zagreus gives him a sweet smile, one of Thanatos’s favorites. He steps close and gently takes the chain.

“Okay,” Zag says. Even standing, he’s so short he almost has to reach up to caress Thanatos’s cheek. “Give me your hands.”

Thanatos brings his arms up immediately, wrists pressed together, elbows angled in. They’ve practiced for this. Zagreus is careful with him, finding what he likes as well as what makes him nervous. He has always liked Zagreus pinning him. He  _ adores _ Zag binding his arms, but it took a long time to get used to the feeling. Lately Zagreus ties up his whole chest and watches him squirm, and he doesn’t stop even when Thanatos’s traitor mouth gets away from him. He can scream as loud as he wants and Zag will tell him he’s brave, he’s doing beautifully. 

“Can I say no?” he asks Zag. 

Zagreus is adorable when he’s thinking. He tilts his head like Cerberus trying to see something with his outer heads. The green eye always angles up, the red one is always tilted down. 

“To the game? Of course, but I thought you said -”

“ _ During _ ,” Thanatos clarifies. He likes to scream it. Megaera likes that sound more than Zag, but Zagreus loves how much Thanatos trusts him. “If I say no, I want you to keep going.”

“As long as you’re all right,” Zagreus concedes. “I’ll be checking.”

Thanatos nods. That is acceptable. They’ve practiced this too, because he won’t have his usual fail-safe. 

He can’t teleport out from these chains.

“Okay,” Zag says. 

Thanatos lifts his wrists up higher, in supplication. 

His lover steps in close to catch them.

Zagreus wraps the chain around and around, one hand at his elbow, the other working the metal. The links are too big, theoretically speaking, to stay tight around something as narrow as his wrists without locking the chain to itself. In practice, they hold fast without any clasp at all. Death’s chains are not forged of common, mortal metal. They were his first weapon, before Ares helped him take up the scythe. His chains take all mortals, foul or pleasant, servant or -

(king)

\- master. Thanatos knows them, they  _ need _ him. They’ve been stifled too long in a chest. 

In the candlelight, they gleam. 

“Good,” Zagreus whispers, and something in Thanatos’s chest unfurls. He has always wanted to be someone’s beloved. Zagreus makes it easy. 

“You’re doing so well,” Zag tells him.

The copper is blood-warm like Zagreus’s fingers. He leans into Zagreus’s touch even as it covers him up. 

The chain cocoons from his wrists to his elbows now, glittering gauntlets more powerful than his armor. And yet still there’s length, enough to wrap Thanatos’s entire body. His metal is  _ hungry _ . There will always be more of it, miles and miles, until a struggling soul finally gives up its breath. He can feel the links spilling off like they’re a trailing part of him.

“Shh, that’s it.”

He’s doing so well that Zag’s red eye is on  _ fire _ . 

He focuses on that, the look on his lover’s face as Zagreus surveys him. Easier that than the sound of the metal. Each clink of the chain is a miniature funeral bell. He stills and so they still.

(He can do this.)

A hand comes up on him, sweeping over his chest. Callused hand. He shivers. Zag said he needn’t be naked, but being clothed only makes it worse. 

(Clothes aren’t anything. The backside of his leggings pulls down and when his thighs are bound they get caught.)

“No,” he moans as a fingernail finds a nipple.

The touching stills.

“What’s my name?” his lover asks.

“Zagreus,” he replies dutifully.

“Good,” his beloved says and squeezes Thanatos’s breast with all five fingers at once. Thanatos groans.

He can be loud if he wants to. He can say ‘no’ all he likes and there is no taste of copper.

“No!” he tries again, more forcefully this time. Zagreus trusts him and doesn’t try to stop this time. Fingers tweak at his nipple and the pain shudders through him with the deepest, most grateful sob.

The chain is clinking against his hip now. It wants more flesh. He is going to yield it. Zagreus sweeps an arm along his spine. All he can feel is the chain wanting to follow it.

It would replace his vertebrae with its links.

“Look at you,” Zagreus says. Yes. Focus on that voice. He is bound but he can still do this. He can do this.

“Now look at me.”

“Never,” he hisses. 

Heat roils when he says it. A hot rush shoots down his belly to his groin. He’s being obstinant, he’s being 

(difficult)

loud, but he’s safe, this is Zagreus. Being held feels good, he  _ wants _ Zag to keep him. Bind him up tight, hold his edges in.

Hands take notice. Strong fingers massage his trembling thighs while the sneaky chain tickles low on his back. His chains could easily wind around his entire waistline. Pin his bound arms flat against his front and keep them there. His legs kick out of their own accord but hit nothing. Zag is standing off to the side. He is sitting. He bounces on the bed. 

Zagreus’s bed is devastatingly soft. His head spins.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He can do this.

They are  _ his _ .

He  _ wants _ to do this.

“ _ Zagreus _ ,” he pleads.

The tease comes in fits and stutters, like blinking. Zagreus is with him and then his touch stops. The mattress dips hard. When had he closed his eyes? He opens them again and Zag is on the bed behind him. He’s going for it, he’s going to wrap the chain all the way around. 

“Just a little more,” Zagreus promises. “Sweetheart. You’re doing so well.”

Yes, he knows it, he’s good.  _ Sweetheart _ . He can do anything when his beloved has him. Just a little longer.

Tricky metal sneaks all the way around his waistline, buoyed by callused fingers. It drops abruptly to his low back. The hands follow after it. 

“Don’t--” 

He stops. He can’t remember what he needs to say. Something about this, he knows this. What was it?

The chain flexes and clicks taut in a line, unnaturally molded to the length of his spine. The links are growing colder as they crawl up his back, swaying side to side like a living snake. He can feel the fingers pulling them back down.

“Sorry, they’re -- fighting me, or something -- think I got it?”

He _ does _ know this. They’re his chains.

“They like the throat,” he tries to explain. The heart’s blood. The breath. They like to wind all the way around, it’s what they’re made for.

“Ah.” 

The chain’s already wound around his arms. The metal is so hot there he squirms.

“T-they need a firm grip,” he chokes out. “They don’t respect everyone.”

The metal is so cold now it gives him frostbite. The prince’s knuckles are small against his back. He has to tell him. 

(What was he telling him?) 

(Who was he telling it to?)

“Mortals can’t touch them. I might have to -”

Let them run. Give them their head, they have a job to do. 

Only he can wield them.

They are so tight on his wrists.

He is hot

(cold)

(hot)

“No,” he tries to say but the chains don’t mind. They’ve  _ turned _ on him. The prince cries out but it’s lost in the tinkling. They surge up to his head and claim his throat, his  _ mouth _ . The chain wraps around his face and when he bites he tastes blood,

(copper)

one whole link crammed like a horse bit in his mouth.

All the air is coming through that narrow squeeze, in and out through the hole in the link. The chain’s crushing his neck. It burns and bites, scorches at him. Freezes.

“What’s my name?”

The king has clever fingers. They fit perfectly through the links. 

“What’s my  _ name _ ?”

He drools and drools but he cannot eject the bit. 

“Okay. Okay, yeah, we’re done here. I’m going to get you out of this, all right?” 

The king takes his wrists. The chain of the dead sings like hundreds of screaming, laughing bells, but no matter how he wills it  _ death himself cannot die. _

“There, is that better now? Than. Thanatos? Sweetheart!”

Somewhere deep down he knows those names but they are inside a chest with no key. Everything else is roaring in his ears. Everything is burning, everything is freezing. Everything is 

(gone.)

Water is dripping all over his face. The king’s bath is so dark he can barely see straight. He must be by the fountain now. The temperature’s even here, so the chains don’t bite.

The king is laying next to him on the marble. His expression is a ruin.

“Oh gods, Than, I’m so sorry. Can you tell me what you need?”

‘Need’ is a foreign word. He gets what they give him. They can pour water straight into your throat. The cup fits perfectly right in the holes.

“Okay, um.”

Cloth descends around him, bundling up his shame. 

“Here, it’s your blanket, Than. Can -- can you feel it?”

He can feel it.

“Can you nod for me if you feel it?”

He nods. The chains don’t seem to fight him when he moves his head. 

“Can you tell me something you see?” 

The king is desperate. He’s always desperate. Scrabbling. Pathetic, scheming little man.

(He isn’t little, he’s pushing up boulders.)

“Than?”

“Fountain,” he chokes. He won’t give the bastard any more satisfaction than that. 

“Fountain!? That’s not -- okay. Than, dear heart, can you touch your blanket?”

He can. It shields him through the burning/freezing. 

“What color is it?”

Blue. It’s everything he sees. Which is odd. The king’s private bath is a modern wonder, four stone tubs laid out around a central fountain. Two made cold with ice dragged in from the mountains; two red hot with mineral water pumped in from a hot spring. The whole chamber has been shut away though, since the water first ran red with a guest’s blood. His blanket is a bright patch that doesn’t belong in the gloom.

“Is it soft? Feel how soft.”

Like finest silk. He’s drooling again. He wishes he could stop. He wipes his face in the blanket trim. 

“There you go, yes. You’re  _ home _ , Than. You’re okay.”

He’s okay. 

The soft voice is choked. The blue around him is soft.

He finally closes his mouth.

There is nothing there.

He lifts his head to peer out from the blanket. Mismatched eyes are staring anxiously back at him. The green one is red-rimmed. The other one is lost to shade. The contrast is beautiful. 

“Ares?” he asks weakly.

“Oh gods.” He doesn’t think he likes it when that voice sounds sad. “No, sweetheart, Zagreus.”

“Zagreus.”

That name tastes better. He lays his head down again. 

“T-take your time,” Zagreus tells him. “You’re safe. Your name is Than. I mean, Thanatos.”

“Thanatos,” he repeats like poor Echo. He’d carried her soul.

He remembers.

“Zag?” he says, twisting on the bed. “The chains - where -”

“They’re gone,” Zagreus says. There’s a hint of his father creeping into his voice. “You don’t have to worry about them.”

He will always worry about them. They’re his responsibility. Even if he cannot wield them.

“Sorry,” he says. 

“It’s not your fault,” Zagreus says, with more heat than Thanatos can ever remember. Maybe he will, once his head’s stopped floating. 

“It was,” he says. “I think I started - I started explaining, how they work. And it. Reminded me.”

“It  _ wasn’t your fault _ ,” and oh, Zagreus is crying. 

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but this is the damage. The fate he inherited, and they do the best they can.

Zagreus reaches out.

Thanatos meets his hand half way and holds it.

These chains don’t bite.

These chains don’t bite.

(They do.)

**Author's Note:**

> Detailed spoiler summary:
> 
> Thanatos has been trying to reclaim both his chains and his sexuality after the incident with Sisyphus left him with heavy trauma. He and Zagreus have been slowly getting into rope bondage (which he typically enjoys because it lets him experience his fear in a safe way). However, when he tries to use his actual magical chains during a scene, it winds up triggering a major panic attack+flashback and dissociative spell. Related, they are also doing a bit of consensual non-consent play (Thanatos asks if Zagreus can ignore the word 'no'; they have a system for him to tap out by other means.) Overall none of this is particularly smart to emulate in real life, but they were at least attempting to mitigate their risks. It just didn't work out that way.
> 
> Follow me on twitter at [guhdong](https://www.twitter.com/guhdong)!


End file.
